Coda
by wildechilde17
Summary: We could just keep driving, the west coast seems like it could be good to me. The fourth part in the business trilogy.
1. Chapter 1

They switch seats at the gas station and he doesn't know what state they're in until he goes in to pay for the gas and buy snacks for the road. Natasha steals his sweat shirt and raises an eyebrow at the powdered donuts he buys because they reminded him of something half forgotten that made him smile anyway.

Clint drives on aware that while he dozed she'd turned off the radio and replaced it with a slick silver mp3 player with an eclectic mix of music he recognizes and doesn't at the same time. She pushes his sweatshirt into a ball against the window while a woman who isn't Ella Fitzgerald sings 'Summertime' and closes her eyes.

He keeps telling her they'll drive until they hit Disneyland and she doesn't believe him laughing openly at the idea of a solider and a spy posing for photos outside Cinderella's castle with Snow White and the seven dwarves. She smirks as she says the Russian fairy tales are better. He is only joking a little until she says that and then he desperately wants her to see the Americaness, the unironic enjoyment and the commercialism. He wants to be there with her and make her wear mouse ears with Natasha written on them. After all, he thinks, isn't Disneyland where you go to celebrate a victory?

She sleeps, still as still can be. It takes him a moment to realize the soft mix of classical, jazz and blues has come to an end and now there is only silence, Natasha and the road. Instead of poking her and making her tell him one of the supposedly 'better' Russian fairy tales he picks up the mp3 player and with one eye on the flat straight line of road he flicks through the playlists. They are labelled in Cyrillic. Toward the end of the list he finds one that stops him. Ястреб.

He hits play, breathing through the sudden dread he's going to regret prying that rolls over him. The car fills with the ticking of a clock and then the static of Soviet speech. Before he has a chance to translate or let some SHIELD interred paranoia overtake him an English tenor interrupts and Clint finds himself laughing at the earnest cold war sentiment.

"There's no such thing as a winnable war," Sting sings, "it's a lie we don't believe anymore."

Clint finds himself singing along, in key this time, to a playlist of songs that he seems to have given Natasha Romanoff Stockholm syndrome for. Yeah they're going to Disneyland. That's a fucking victory in anyone's book.


	2. Chapter 2

He throws his head back and laughs when she puts the ears on. There are still circles under his eyes. They are his special version blue and not red raw like they were on the security tapes she'd scrutinized or in the face that turned on her bow in hand but they are tired and lined.

"Hot damn Red! That's a look and a half."

She pulls them off and shakes out her curls.

"Shut it Barton." He puts his hand to his mouth as he laughs the seam of a vein running down his forearm up his bicep and under his t- shirt.

"You put them on. You actually put them on. I gotta get a picture. Nat put 'em back on so I can get a picture."

"Put them on yourself." She swings the offending hat around on her finger as she speaks. "These don't even have my name on them. Did you steal them from a passing child?"

"Always with the accusations. I figured Nancy was a good cover name."

"Nancy? In 1968 Nancy would be a good cover."

"I could call you Nan."

"Right. And I get to call you what exactly? Biff? Chip?" She asks pulling the names from memories of American TV shows that formed part of a training program that was the exact opposite of the pearls and twinsets she'd watched with calculating eyes.

"Sexy?" He smirks at her again raising his brows suggestively. There is so much noise, tinny sounds of music pumped through loud speakers, children squealing and adults arguing. The crowds and the noise are putting her on edge. She'd be more comfortable in a busy market in Marakesh with a mark and an objective than here in this.

"You wish."

"Why'd ya put them on?" His voice lowers and takes on the serious growl that she'd rather not hear. "Not in a million years did I think you were actually gonna put them on." He shakes his head and his eyebrows lower. Stupid man always looking for patterns.

"There is some kind of ride that we are supposed to ride here, yes? With tea cups?" She replies nonchalantly turning down the main street to look at the sheer number of pink items that cram into the view.

"Come back here you," he says but doesn't grab at her instead stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Why'd you put the ears on Nancy?"

"Why not?" she says as she turns back to him.

"Because it's beneath you? Because I wanted you too? Because you have too much grace and class for my kinda shit?" He purses his lips slightly and looks like he is chewing on the inside of his cheek.

"It isn't important." She shrugs and finds herself tucking her own hands into her pockets in a mimicry of his body language. She knows it's designed to make other people trust you and yet she catches herself doing it and knows it was not intentional, it was not a choice, she follows him and always has.

"You pitying me?" he asks raising his chin.

"I wanted to see you smile."

"You wanted to see me smile?" he repeats like he did not hear her.

"It's not that complicated."

"You put the ears on 'cause you wanted to see me smile?" He grins and maybe it is worth the pain of him repeating her words over and over in his incredulous and victorious voice. There is stubble along his jaw line and his top lip.

"Will you stop saying that if I kiss you?"

"In public?" he asks his tongue pokes from between his lips for a second.

"Will you be silent?" she whispers as she pushes herself up on the balls of her feet.

"As the grave," he mummers back grazing his lips against hers.


	3. Chapter 3

He tugs on her hand. The callouses on the second distal phalanges of three of his fingers catch against her skin and she feels warm with the recognition that this is entirely specific to him and now in some small way the feel of his callouses against her hands are entirely specific to them. It itches in a place she could never scratch at, the feeling of new memories being made.

"Let's get gone," he says.

"We just got here."

"Yeah," he agrees and yet his eyes do anything but.

"There are tea cups. I have memories of giant tea cups I've never seen." She licks her bottom lip as she watches him shift his weight further to his right and scratch at his chin.

"Yeah. We aren't gonna do this."

"Clint."

"This isn't right. You're doing this… It isn't right."

"Don't. Hey. Hawkeye," she smiles for the sake of the passing mass of people and puts the mouse ears on his head. "You are usually…. Impulsive…. But we just got here."

"Don't do this to fix me," he says gruffly knocking the hat from his head forward into a waiting hand with the ease of someone who knows exactly how an object will fall.

"No."

"I'm saying…"

"I understood what you said."

"I'm saying…" he tries again looking more frustrated and edgy each moment they stand here.

"I am saying don't make me say I want to be here," she cuts across him softly, "I am saying don't make me feel guilty for wanting to be with you. I am saying I can want you to be happy. I can want that."

"Yeah."

"Laughing about mouse ears isn't the same as pretending you aren't broken."

"I'm not broken."

"Yes you are. You were broken when you held me against a wall with an arrow tip and you are broken now the only difference today is we have breaks in the same places." He nods along with each word she says and she feels as if each one is punctuated with his unspoken 'yeah, but'. She sighs before adding, "He carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down." It's an odd turn of phrase and she sees it catch him off guard, his eyes narrow and he frowns.

"I know that… why do I know that?"

"The Boxer."

"Huh yeah." He huffs and then his top lip pulls up in one corner before he asks "Why do you know that?"

"I can know things Barton."

"Simon and Garfunkel?"

"I know things."

"You know everything," he says a little less a growl than everything that has preceded it and he steps forward.

"The fighter still remains, Barton, the fighter still remains."

"You remember the rest of that song? It's not a hopeful song Tasha."

"No." Natasha answers lower than the noise of the crowd and the music but enough that he can hear her. They are not hopeful people; they are people looking for a job and some comfort there.

"You wanted tea cups?" he shrugs tiredly.

"You brought me here. I believe I am owed tea cups."


	4. Chapter 4

His feet are flat, his hips are anchored, he breathes out coming to the bottom of his breath and then he pulls back on the trigger gradually… or doesn't… he hasn't been given the order. He stares down the sight and runs his checks again. It is a deadliest tai chi practice.

The rifle is perfectly calibrated to him but she is like a second favorite child always disregarded in favor of her sibling hidden under the tarp to his left, a black recurve bow. It isn't the type of weapon you use on a job like this they'd told him, predictably distrustful of his proficiency with a bow and arrow. Coulson to his credit had merely paused and then allowed that she would have handlers just like he did and they would be most interested in the cause of the loss of their highly trained asset. An arrow is a calling card in this day and age and a sniper rifle is not.

That red hair is easy to find in the crowd he doesn't understand why she hasn't changed it. He hasn't admittedly given it much thought preferring the Zen practice of his checks. But the occasional question does ferment in the back of his mind as the hours count down. Questions like why she is in a youth hostel in a coat two sizes too large for her and why she still has red hair, such red hair.

"Coulson you there?" he asks into his comm.

"Hawkeye report," Coulson replies matter of factly.

"Why is the Black Widow in a Youth Hostel?"

"Is it important?"

"No… you sure we got the right girl?"

"All our intelligence has been confirmed she is the Black Widow."

"Yeah, so why is she in a Youth Hostel? I mean she takes down pretty important targets right? And she doesn't do it by stealth; she does it by, well, Black Widowing shit right?" he asks his chin grazing against the stock as he talks.

"The Cold War term was honey trap I believe… don't let that fool you. She is deadly and quite adept at disappearing."

"Coulson, something feels off about this. She's in a youth hostel there is no one here worth honey trapping or assassinating and it sure as fuck isn't getting her close to someone worth black widowing so why is she here?"

"This is a chance to take out the Black Widow. We may not get one again." It's an acknowledgement that he may be right, not an out and out agreement but as close as Coulson gets.

"Yeah, yeah… no one's made contact with her in the last three days either… you don't think that's strange?"

"Do you believe she knows she is being watched?" These new earpieces make it sound like Coulson's in his head. It has a strangely irritating quality to it, more so than the static feedback that he used to get. He's kept more quiet on this mission than his handler has to be used to just so he didn't have to hear the omnipresent Coulson tell him to shut his trap. He has enough voices in his own head telling him he is an annoying little shit without adding a new one.

"Nah I don't think that's why…. What if she's running?"

"Running?"

"Yeah, I think she's running… I think she isn't working for the bad guys anymore…. I think she's running from them."

"Your orders are to neutralize the Black Widow."

"I know what my orders are Coulson. I'm just saying I'm not sure she's the Black Widow anymore."

"Hawkeye, you will follow your orders."

"Sir."

"That better have been a 'Yes Sir'."

"Sir."

Her hair whips round her face as she exits the café at the front of the hostel, she pulls the navy coat closer and for a second he feels a sense of déjà vu. He has an image of the giant tea cups at Disneyland, the ones you can ride in and this girl's red hair caught in between her lips. It's so odd that his breath stops and he finds himself resetting and checking his feet are flat, his hips are anchored and he releases his breath again trying to center himself before they call green.

And she looks up. Straight up at the roof almost a kilometre away where he lies and her eyes widen.

"Shit." There is no way she just did that. One one thousand.

"Hawkeye?" Two one thousand.

"She made me Sir, the Black Widow just made me." Three one thousand.

She turns, fast and clever, weaves herself into the crowd making her difficult to separate from the bystanders. He can hear Coulson relay his recon down the line. Four one thousand. Five one thousand. Down to the bottom of your breath.

"You are green Hawkeye. If you have a clear line take it." And she is in front of the alley way for an instant the crowd parts and he can take the shot, he pulls back on the trigger gradually. Almost a kilometre away the girl with the red hair and the navy coat two sizes too big crumples in a heap and people scream.

"The Black Widow is down," he reports in the voice of someone who knows that they take the bad guys out, this is what they do. Seven one thousand, eight one thousand, and then he begins to scream.

This isn't how it happened. The girl with the red hair and the navy coat two sizes too big made him but she didn't run and when he was green he didn't take the shot. He didn't. Her head didn't snap back like that and her body didn't stay standing for a fraction of a second before hitting pavement.

The scream tears at his throat.

"Clint!" the voice of the girl with the red hair and the wide green eyes calls his name. "Clint Barton wake up! You're having a nightmare. Wake up!"

When he opens his eyes, twisting on the bed, the girl is there.

"No. I killed you," he says though he knows that isn't right.

"Yet here I stand," she says in a t-shirt two sizes too big and red hair illuminated by a bare bulb.

"Tasha?"


	5. Chapter 5

"You'll be okay Clint," she says her voice a little thick with sleep still.

"Yeah? When exactly will that be?" he says shaking himself roughly on the bed before sliding up against the pillows, scrunched and boxed by his movement.

"When you find your level," Natasha glides a finger around the edge of the glass of water she has collected from the ensuite gathering the condensation before handing it to him. She presses her wet fingertip to her lips unconsciously licking the moisture away when she drops her hand.

"My level, yeah? Whatever that is."

Natasha shrugs, unwilling to explain anything to a defensive, frustrated Clint knowing all she'll get in return is sarcastic retorts and blank refusals. "Do you want to tell me about the nightmare?" she asks instead. He gulps down the water. He always wakes thirsty from these dreams. Sweating out the external control and the false memories in a way she nearly envies.

"Not really." He closes his eyes as he speaks. He had woken her this time, long before he'd started the shocking scream his breathing had changed from the comfortable breathing of sleep to the deep even breathing she'd seen him sink into on rooftops in a hundred cities. The change had brought her out of her own sleep. In a way she had been relived that her normal vigilance had not left her entirely with the presence of this Clint Barton now her… the man she'd fucked soundly into a mattress a few nights before. When she'd opened her eyes he was unnaturally still on the bed beside her so she'd waited him out.

"Its 2:33 you should try to get some more sleep," she says simply returning to her side of the bed.

"You could try a little harder you know." He opens one eye to peer at her and his mouth twists a little.

"Would it make a difference?"

"No. I dunno. It might mean you gave a shit," he says tiredly.

"It might mean that," she agrees tucking her naked legs under the covers again, aware of the humidity radiating off his bare skin trapped beneath the sheets. He throws his head back harder against his pillows, his neck arching as his shoulder blades push down against the mattress.

"You are cold Nat, artic cold," he bites at her.

"Perhaps."

"What? Nothing? Push back a little Natasha. Give me something here." There is a little of the man who has irritated her across continents in the prodding but she doesn't rise to it hearing too much of the piss and vinegar's absence and the un Clint Barton like desperation that has taken its place.

"And let you, strung out on adrenalin and cortisol, find something real and solid to feel guilty about so you don't have to deal with the guilt and the anxiety of imagined actions?" He stops at that and she feels the weight shift beside her as he goes to leave the bed. She closes her eyes hoping that she can hide the sudden emotional turmoil the idea that he will walk away causes in her.

She wants to stop him. She wants to tell him that she knows he is piling new guilts upon old in an effort to rationalize the twisting feeling in his gut, that she can see he feels ashamed of the nightmare and the naked terror that wrought that scream from him. Natasha wants to tell him that she has felt it too and too many times to count it was his ridiculous face that woke her, distracted her and reminded her that redemption was possible. But on those nights he'd never said any of those things and she finds she doesn't know how to say them now.

"I got real stuff to feel guilty and anxious about," he growls suddenly and his weight shifts again, he has decided to stay.

"Yes. I will not be one of them Clint Barton." When she opens her eyes again he is leaning in watching her with his blue eyes as searching as they have ever been. She stares back finding herself hoping he will find whatever it is he is looking for. He gives a brief nod before sliding back down to stare at the water damaged ceiling. He is quiet again. She curls on her side, wrapping one arm around her ribs protectively despite the quickness of their recovery.

"You hated Disneyland didn't you?" he says behind her.

"I didn't hate it."

"You kinda did," his voice has a wry note now that compels her to turn over and look for Hawkeye in those blue eyes of his, dancing with the absurdities of life.

"I did not," she answers stubbornly fighting against the impulse. "I felt very… Russian."

"Russian?"

"Yes." She feels his breath against her shoulder as he pulls himself up to look at her.

"You're not Russian anymore Tasha."

"Perhaps," she answers curling on herself a little tighter.

"No perhaps about it." His fingers graze her upper arm. She knows he is asking her to come back to him from wherever she has gone in her head. When she rolls to answer him he moves back instinctively, never crowding her.

"Sometimes I wonder," she says softly.

"Wonder what?" he asks his eye brows squeezing together to create a deep crease.

"If my Americaness is no more than new programing."

"Tasha, no," he says quickly, "I was there. This is you." He reaches out to grab her shoulders as he normally would, she catches the momentary hesitation and then the decision to not change because they have changed and his warm, large hands come to rest against her skin. "Stubborn, cold, difficult, beautiful you. I know you."

"You do not ever wonder?"

"About you? Never," he grins despite the exhaustion. He is either unaware or beyond caring that his hair sticks out at odd angles and that there are pillow creases down one side of his face.

"Ah but you wonder about you now?" His grin disappears and he considers her words. When he speaks there is a childlike quality to it that makes her ache.

"What if you didn't hit me hard enough?"

"If this is me, then you know I never fail to hit hard enough," she answers but knowing the humor won't be enough Natasha echoes him saying, "I know you. This is you, stubborn, sarcastic, difficult… beautiful."

"Beautiful? You think I'm beautiful Romanoff?" His smile is so bright and large. She rolls her eyes.

"Egotistical."

"Nah, no getting out of this one," he pokes at her, "You think I'm beautiful."

"Beautiful like a first breath with broken ribs," she allows. He snorts.

"I'll take it," he chuckles, the tension in his muscles easing for the first time since he woke. Natasha bites her lip, watching him roll on to his back and stretch out wondering for a moment how he manages to slip so easily into such physical confidence.

"Will you sleep again?"

"You're not leaving."

"I'm not leaving." He nods sharply at that. He closes his eyes again as he pulls her into him cradling her beneath his strong left arm. She lets him hold her there rising and falling with each breath he takes relaxing a little each time it fails to be the deep even breath of a sniper.

"I've only ever made a handful of good decisions in my life," he says yawning, "You know?"

"Yes this is why you always steal my food in restaurants." She keeps her ear to his heart, her hand curled against his chest. She feels him chuckle briefly.

"There was a girl in a coat two sizes too big. She had red hair and she looked up and saw me on a roof top." She pulls back needing to see his face to be sure of what he is saying. He smiles quickly at her, a soft reassuring smile.

"She didn't run. She could have run, but she was tired of running," she finishes for him watching as his eyelids grow heavy.

"She was the best decision I ever made."

"Sleep ястреб," she whispers. She doesn't thank him, he knows it is a debt she will never repay. His eyes close as she rests her head back on his chest.

"Still is the best decision."


	6. Chapter 6

In the morning with dull grey light filtering through the window and reflecting off the equally grey concrete car park, she wakes earlier than he does. Natasha is relieved that a second wave of nightmares has not woken him. He still looks drained and a heavy arm laid across her waist should prevent her from moving without jostling him. She is still, however, Черная вдова and if she couldn't slip from a sleeping man's bed she would be of little use. A quick look at her cell tells her that it is still early enough that he can sleep and they can still vacate the ugly room they took for the night and find somewhere less cheap and nasty along the road to wherever he takes them next.

He moves his arm further up her body in his sleep as he rolls on to his side making snuffling noises as his nose comes away from the pillow buried beneath his face. Beneath her breasts his hand flexes and pulls her closer, hot breath forced against her neck with his every exhale. She wonders how he became so unconsciously accustomed to being allowed to touch her in this manner. It is not that they now share a bed because they have often done so but that even asleep he senses he has permission to curl her into him, to hold her, touch her, fondle her and perhaps even love her.

She is considering that perhaps Clint Barton has been consciously preventing himself from crossing the line she had built for them for so long that it is not that he is quickly learning new ways but only giving up old rules. Artifice that she hadn't looked for and that she had wilfully ignored. She will never tell him but Clint Barton has better acting skills than she had credited him with.

She considers this and whether the stain on the terrible aqua, pink and yellow curtains examined under ultraviolet light will be revealed to be semen, blood or saliva as his hand moves higher again. His thumb slides across her breast. Like the tiny muscle in the ear that pulls back in the presence of loud noises she reacts instantly to his touch even though it is through the fabric of a loose fitting t-shirt. She licks her bottom lip and remains still. His breath has not changed, his heart rate remains slow and steady. His thumb moves again and this time it seems to strain for a moment to drag across her hardening nipple. She narrows her eyes giving him one more chance to convince her of his sleeping. His thumb moves again a little firmer than before the tip of the long digit coming to rest right on top of her nipple.

She rolls towards him. His eyes are still closed but she raises a single eyebrow and waits until a familiar smirk breaks his cover. "Enjoying yourself Barton?" she asks.

"I did wonder how long you were gonna let me get away with it," he says opening his eyes, blue like the North Sea.

"This behavior from the man who said we could use our particular skill sets for things other than wrong doing."

"If this is wrong I don't want to be right," he says his forehead creasing and his voice dropping.

"It's early you could sleep."

"So could you. Besides Natasha Romanoff is in my bed. Sleep is the last thing I want when Natasha Romanoff is in my bed." His fingers play at the stitching on the sleeve of the t-shirt she wears. He examines it intently. Fingers tugging at loose stitches stray against her skin and a small current of electricity seems to jump between blunt fingers and pale arms.

"Your bed?" she sighs.

"I paid for it, way I see it it's mine till 11."

"And what is the first thing you want when Natasha Romanoff is in your bed?" He stares at her lips as she frames the words. She has seen him like this before, in early morning light or dark in between hours when his eyes lose focus and blankly stare at coffee pots full of horrible American coffee, stewed and bitter, that he makes sweet with packets of granulated white sugar. It is her lips that he stares at now as though she could be made sweet from bitter and return his focus.

"More of the covers?" he answers despite the fact that they slept without sheets. His intensity dissipates with an easy shrug and a goofy grin.

"Is that so?" she asks disinterestedly as she stretches arching her back and pulling her hands above her head allowing her t-shirt rise up baring her midriff and the small panties that she'd slept in. Her nipples distort the line of the soft white fabric. She rubs her thighs together as she fakes a yawn. "Perhaps I could sleep again."

"You are dangerous, woman," he growls, his eyes black and hollow with want.

"Yes," she replies as he moves. Hawkeye moves fast. He drags her t-shirt up her body even as he straddles her. She lifts her head as she twist her legs beneath his sudden weight. His mouth is open and urgent on hers before he pulls the shirt over her head. When she is bare beneath him save for the cotton panties he gives a small sound, a huff of air like a short lived claim to victory. His eyes are sharp on her body, combing over her breasts, her belly down to the dampness between her thighs.

He pushes back resting more of his weight on her thighs before running two warm hands up her sides to her breasts. Calloused fingers scribble and scrape at her nipples under his dark gaze. She shifts under his ministrations though her hands, one twisted in her hair one caught under her pillow, refuse to move. She could throw him off her, she could destroy him, instead she parts her lips and stares him down as he grasps and torments her breasts like she is a new bow to be tested and turned to his use.

"Fuck," he says. His voice is low and dangerous and the word sounds filthy in his mouth. Natasha merely raises an eyebrow. He bends to her holding his mouth above hers like it was goddamn mistletoe. "Fuck," he says again and twists her nipple between his thumb and his index finger until she yields and allows the shock of it to register on her face. She is enclosed with only a view of the North Sea, twined and stormy.

She moves then taking her hand from her hair and push back at him with a hand on his sternum. Her fingers splay against hard muscle, she does not push as hard as she can but he rocks back a little with a dry chuckle only to grasp her hand and force it down between them.

He is hard and she is wet. He pushes her hand against him grunting as she allows her fingers to curl around him. "Fucking dangerous. Fucking glorious." He doesn't kiss her again, though she stretches up against him he effortlessly keeps that small distance between them. He smirks at each of her attempts to reach him.

Firmly grasping her thighs he rolls her towards the window grinding himself against her ass as he moves behind her. There are red finger prints the size and shape of bow string fingers pressed into paleness of her skin. His body curves against her, hard, hot and bare save for the boxers she can feel him strain against.

There is a gap where the hideous curtains fail to meet. She can see a sliver of car park and a drink machine on the opposing side. A man in a Hawaiian shirt shoves the machine, green and yellow, trying to retrieve a soda can. Natasha wonders what he would think if he turned now and through the glare caught a glimpse of her naked body and hawk eyed man with corded muscles whispering "Fuck" into her red hair.

He lifts her leg pulling it back over his own. She is open and suddenly desperate to be filled. She reaches back for him cradling his head against her neck in the crook of her arm. His mouth on her neck sends a surge of need through her body. She arches, breasts jutting from her bruised ribs and gasps. His mouth grins against her skin.

"Clint," she says.

"My name in your mouth. Fuck," his voice is like the beginning of an avalanche and his stubble scrapes at her jaw. "It sounds like trust, Tasha."

"It sounds…" he cups her between their entwined legs, she tries to catch her breath, "sounds like your…" his fingers push past the weak resistance of the cotton, "ah, name." His thumb and forefinger grip her chin tilting her head back towards him and she feels him shake his head softly.

"Tasha," he says with a tone of warning. He slides his fingers between her folds his middle finger pressing harder than the rest. Her hips cant upwards to meet his stroke. She twist her fingers into the short hair at his crown. She is not gentle.

"Clint."

His hand leaves her face but she leaves her head tilted back against him. Clint slips his boxers while she is distracted. She bites down on her lip to stop the moan that sits on the back of her tongue and tastes the metallic taint of blood. He doesn't wait, he is not patient or gentle, he does not care to see her eyes. He pushes aside scraps of fabric. He thrusts up into her and the hollow ache behind her navel is filled with the not quite stretch and the not quite burn of him. The moan rolls forward on her tongue, it is salty and damp.

She closes her eyes as his hand grasps her breast, kneading her flesh, her nipple grazed by the roughness of his skin. Damp cotton caught between her cheeks, pushed aside to make way for him rides up and down with each of his thrusts. His other hand remains between her legs, fingers fanned out across sensitive lips, pressing down on her clit as she moves with him. It feels quick and dirty, it feels hard and unadorned and when he moans her name in drawn out syllables she feels more herself than she has ever felt before.

"Fuck Tasha, fuck… you are a fire fight and… a fucking symphony… fuck…" each word punctuated by an upward thrust, the poetry of sex.

"Shut up Barton," she cries out as she rides a crescent wave of muscles clenching and needs demanding. She claws at his hand over her breast and contracts around his cock as the crescendo of orgasm hits. She stiffens, head thrown back against his shoulder, eyes open and blinded by the brightness of the room.

His arms are still wrapped around her, sweat clinging to each dip and rise of his muscles. He glides wetly in and out of her as she releases his head from her arm. Knots in her belly loosen even as she becomes aware of a slow building ache in her hip. Clint presses a breathless, open mouth kiss to her shoulder before his rhythm changes. He grunts spilling into her. His arms are a cage holding her tightly against his hard chest.

When reality descends and his grip loosens she can push hair from her face and straighten legs threatening to cramp. She pulls back enough to look at him again, the tan lines on his shoulders, his upper chest rising and falling erratically, the hollow pit of his belly, and his softening cock. She recognizes each groove and curve, each scar and line. He is beautiful. With his dark lashes resting on his cheeks in an odd contrast to his large nose and sweat stained hair, he seems unfazed by her examination. Slowly his lips curve at the edges, Вы действительно думаете, что я красивая? A memory, words for a different fight.

She dips her head licking the salt gathered at the corner of his mouth. His eyebrows rise with an unasked question before turning his head to return the kiss. His large hands cup her face.

"Tasha? Fuck is that blood?" he says opening his eyes, his tongue swiping across his bottom lip.

"I bit my lip," she says as his thumb comes up to press against the torn flesh, it stings for a moment but he is surprisingly gentle.

"Whatcha do that for?" She shrugs. "Did I? I didn't hurt you did I?" He stares into her eyes as if he could see a lie if she decided to tell it.

"You think I would let you hurt me?" She pushes his hands away from her face.

"No. I don't know." He sits up, putting a fist to his mouth, "I didn't think you'd let me do that to be honest." She watches his shoulder blades move beneath the surface of his skin as he hunches forward.

"Clint."

"What?" he asks turning back to her, Natasha has pulled her legs into her wrapping her hands around her knees, thinly disguising the evidence of their debauchery. Even if this were the kind of room that she would be happy to see how many ways she can make him come apart beneath her in, she knows too much of Clint Barton to think he will listen to her words when every physical reminder of their wrestling remains.

"Your name in my mouth, what does it sound like to you?" He gives her a slight smile.

"My name."

"Clint," she says firmly. He groans.

"It sounds like trust, Tasha, like trust."

"As it should." She raises her chin letting her curls fall away from her face before leaving the bed.


	7. Chapter 7

When she exits the bathroom he passes her like it's any other day, like this is a safe house and they are on a mission. He doesn't reach for her or smile. He maneuvers around her like a bomb disposal RCV, automatically and unaware. There is an unfamiliar tightness in her shoulders that should not be there after minutes spent staring blankly at the chipped tiles while hard water rained down her face.

The door shuts quietly behind her and the shower turns on. She combs out her hair and she hears him swear as the hot water gives out. A faded midwestern twang to the indignant curses brings a small smile to her lips and it is minutes before she realizes that the tension has left her shoulders. He stays in the shower for his full three minutes regardless of water temperature.

The door opens, steam billowing out around him. Clint is holding a towel around his waist, fingers gripping at the point where the edges do not meet. His other hand rubs from the back of his neck to his forehead throwing small droplets of water off his damp hair.

"You need to learn to share, woman," he says not looking at her.

She doesn't answer. She zips her boots and pulls her jeans back down over them. She watches silently as he rubs his hair again with the towel. There is a small rivulet of water that runs down his back following the indent of his spine and separating as it reaches the top of his ass trying to reach his venusian dimples. The abrasions on his shoulders are healing and here and there bruises are turning yellow. He still favors his knee but he stands for longer and longer without searching the room for a place to sit or a wall to lean against.

He dresses in silence, a grey long sleeved t-shirt and jeans crumpled from the floor. His belt buckle is black but has glints of silver peeking through where he has rested it against the backs of chairs or the clasp of the worn leather cuff he wears on his left wrist in place of a shooting glove has rubbed away at it. He turns and stretches as she does up her duffel bag and his shirt rises up revealing a small trail of hair.

"Where next?" she asks. He lets his arms fall to his side again.

"Dunno, haven't looked at our options. You pick."

"Anywhere?"

"Anywhere but.."

"But southwest," she finishes for him.

"Yeah," he says one side of his mouth drawing upwards in an apologetic wince. There is part of her that wants to push him, to make him face his fears, force him to be the strong, wilful Clint Barton he has always been once again. There is part of her that screams internally that his ledger will never be as red as hers and that he has no right to parade around cloaked in pain. That part has the cold, angry voice of Natalia, she speaks as if she has been shot, she speaks as if there is an arrow through her shoulder pinning her to a wall. Natasha thought she was dead.

"Tash? You okay?" he says coming closer his hands sliding up her arms, "You went blank for a second."

"Just…" she tries to answer, pressing her lips together to silence Natalia in her head, "considering our options." There is another part of her that looks up at him and sees the concern written into every line of his face. There is another part of her that wants to kiss his mouth until the only thing he remembers is the taste of her, not Loki, not nightmares, not the feeling of knives and the way they slide so easily into skin.

"Screw options. Where do you want to be Tasha?" he pats her left arm in a familiar rhythm.

"Want?"

"Yeah." He turns and collects his wallet and cell from the table.

"I... home," she says before she can stop the word.

"The Hellicarrier?" he asks repacking his remaining clothing.

"Clint that isn't a home." Even as she says it she knows she is the last person to define the concept of home. There is a tired, craving inside her that demands a safe place to go and she knows that isn't the Hellicarrier and she knows that isn't and has never been Russia. She has lived so long without such a place she can't find a reason why now there would be an ache as persistent as a homing beckon flashing on and off inside her.

"Kinda felt like one to me." He shrugs and gives her a halfhearted smile.

"Bare metal quarters, eating in shifts and never being at the same coordinates that you fell asleep in?"

"Grew up in a circus, plus," he gestures making some wild encompassing movement whose meaning she can only guess at. "Aw hell."

"Plus?" she says pointedly a small smile tugging at her lips with his 'aw hell'.

"You were there," he says avoiding her gaze.

"I was there?" she repeats blankly.

"I don't know what home is to you Tasha but to me it… it started being you." He scratches at his chin.

"Me?" She lets the frustration and confusion show on her face. Clint is one of the few people she will let see her this way and while she could smile and pretend she understood him, soothe his mild panic, play at being perfect like Natalie or Simone or any number of roles she's taken on for men with egos as fragile as their grips on reality, this is not them. Clint and Natasha piece together truth from broken memories and fragile first principles.

"My best friend… and my bow, but if I have to I can get another bow… there isn't another Natasha Romanoff and home, well, it's you and the way you don't kill me when I steal your fries and the foam rubber that sticks to my suit when you pin me to those crappy mats in the training room." Clint Barton looks like the words he is saying are actively causing him pain. No, not pain, she realizes, embarrassment.

"You sound like you've thought about this," she says crossing her arms but in an instant she is picking grey foam from his shoulders in her mind and swatting his hand away from the french fries that she knows she only puts on her plate so he can steal them. She can hear the sound his footsteps and his alone make on the metal corridor outside her quarters, the rhythm unique to his cocky gait.

"I think about shit, Romanoff."

"You want to go back to the Hellicarrier?"

"No, I want to go where ever you want to go," he huffs, "So, where's home Tasha?" he tilts his head to the side as he asks looking, for a moment, like a curious Labrador.

"I do not know."

"But you said?"

"Yes. I did not think before I spoke." She closes her eyes trying to solidify the faint wisps of reason that refuse to stay still.

"Tash, hey Tasha, it's all good we got time. You can figure it out," he says reaching out to gently drag his thumbs across the creases of her brow. He cups her face in his hands and smiles again when she opens her eyes.

"New York," she says and he drops his hands from her face.

"It's a mess back there… we might be recognized," he says like a risk assessment is so ingrained in him he can't help but run down their numbers. As he speaks a small amount of shame registers on his face, but it isn't for the role he played in the mess that is New York she has seen that guilt and it shuts him down and makes him as intense as he is on an op, it is a guilt that makes him intent on being better. This shame mobilizes his face making him look boyish as if he has been caught with the cookie jar, it is as if he is sorry for scorning her plans.

"You still have your place in Brooklyn?"

"It's a place to leave my comics and my couch, yeah?" He smells like toothpaste and soap.

"There then. We go there."

"It's not the Ritz." Natasha raise her eyebrows until he looks at their surroundings. "Yeah, yeah I got it. You sure? It's not your home." He says resting a hand on his belt buckle and he watches her intently.

"You'll be there?"

"It's my place," he replies easily, smirking like she thinks she can kick him out.

"Then…"

"Oh. Oh?" And on the North Sea of Clint Barton's eyes it is like the sun comes out.


End file.
